


I Thought You Didn't Want Me

by Shujinkakusama



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Multi, Post-Series, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:50:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9821180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shujinkakusama/pseuds/Shujinkakusama
Summary: For the Tumblr prompt "I thought you didn't want me." In which Jasper feels inadequate in her relationship with Pearl and Garnet, and meeting Sardonyx for the second time in her life doesn't really help. Fortunately, Garnet and Pearl do. // Fluff, post-series, ask box fic.





	

Jasper’s feelings of inadequacy grew every time Garnet and Pearl warped away together, and at first, the sensation was so foreign, so _completely_ alien to her, that she couldn’t put a name to it.

 

It grew worse with time. Despite having all more or less becoming… involved… at the same time some months prior, whatever Garnet and Pearl shared was fundamentally _different_ on a level Jasper didn't feel she could reach.

 

It all made sense the first time she saw them form Sardonyx.

 

…Actually, it was the second time she had _seen_ Sardonyx; the first time, she had been seven hundred years old, barely adept at fighting on the front lines, armed with a corporeal weapon too large for a single Gem to wield normally, posing as support for some of the two- and three-quartz Fusions on Homeworld’s side—and she’d scarcely avoided being knocked into the stratosphere by the Crystal Gem’s massive war hammer.

 

Jasper remembered there being little warning before her comrades had gone spiraling up and away, and she herself had to find cover. Booming laughter followed, sharp in the misty morning air, and while she would deny to her final days that she had been _afraid_ , Jasper hadn’t dared to move until the giant had finished romping through the strawberry fields, cutting through a disturbing number of seasoned warriors on her way. Whoever she was, _whatever_ she was, she was a force Jasper knew she couldn’t handle on her own.

 

Thousands of years later, Jasper knew _why_. A Fusion between the Terrifying Renegade and one of Rose Quartz’s best-known lieutenants wasn’t someone she thought even Yellow Diamond would want to meet in a fair fight.

 

Garnet and Pearl had a unique way of falling into one another. It wasn’t sexual, exactly. It almost wasn’t romantic, either. It was _enticing_ , though, and Jasper wondered how many hundreds of times Garnet had tossed Pearl into the sky like she weighed nothing at all, only to catch her in a flurry of dragonflies and light and booming laughter.

 

And when the air cleared, Sardonyx was in their place. Jasper didn’t know what to make of her, of the way she laughed at jokes that weren’t funny, of how utterly full of herself she was, of her unabashed, impossible, overwhelming _confidence_ that didn’t seem to come from either Pearl _or_ Garnet—Sardonyx was in a league of her own.

 

And Jasper wasn't part of that.

 

She didn’t flee the scene, exactly, but she was the first to warp back to the Temple when the hive of corrupted Gems had been taken care of, hardly waiting for Sardonyx’s grand finale at all.

 

Sardonyx was disappointed. She had wanted to meet her components’ partner.

 

When the other Crystal Gems returned, Jasper had already gone; the door was left open, and Garnet didn’t need to look into the future to know that Jasper would be up at the lighthouse. She and Pearl left Amethyst and Steven to go after her. Jasper might have been moody, but she was _predictable_ , and sure enough, she was lying in the grass near the fence, staring up at the clouds with a gaze at least a hundred miles away from where she lay.

 

Pearl sat first, legs tucked to her side, but Garnet was surer of herself, and broke the silence before either of them could; “You’re upset about Sardonyx.”

 

“Hn.”

 

Garnet and Pearl exchanged a _Look_. It didn’t take much deduction to know that was an affirmative grunt.

 

“You needn’t be,” Pearl tried, worrying her bottom lip. Jasper resolutely looked to her left, away from Pearl. She wanted to reach out, to reassure her somehow, but words failed her. “Jasper, there were _dozens_ of those beasts, it was the easiest way—“

 

“That’s not why I’m upset,” Jasper muttered.

 

“And you’re not upset that we Fused,” Garnet said pointedly, settling her hands on her hips. “But you’re upset. About Sardonyx.”

 

Garnet must have been using her future vision, Jasper thought, and she wondered if Sardonyx had that, too. She wondered what it was like, and wondered how Garnet could stand it. Did her lovers coexist inside Sardonyx’s subconscious? Did they share control? Did they fade away, like Ruby and Sapphire so clearly did?

 

She scowled. “It’s nothing,” she grumbled, and Pearl’s gentle hand on her shoulder wasn’t what she wanted right now, but she didn’t bat her away. “I thought you didn’t want me. That’s all. It’s stupid.”

 

“Jasper!” Pearl looked horrified; Garnet looked a little more than mildly upset. “Why on _Earth_ would we _not want you_? We love you!”

 

It wasn’t something they said often or outright. Jasper paused, turning a little to meet Pearl’s gaze, and that was a mistake; beseeching blue eyes were fixed on hers, and Jasper knew that the only thing she had been right about was that it was stupid.

 

“You’re right. It’s stupid,” Garnet agreed, crouching at Jasper’s side. The quartz soldier peeked up at her in time for Garnet to lean down and kiss her, and at such impossibly close quarters, Jasper could see her eyes, wide with surprise, reflected in her lover’s visor before the entire thing vanished in a blinding flurry of blue and red light.

 

Jasper saw stars, and it wasn’t entirely from the kiss itself. But she recovered quickly as Garnet pulled away, and she thanked the cosmos that Pearl, at least, didn’t insist on trying to blind her when she leaned down for a kiss of her own.

 

“At no point, Jasper, would we ever stop wanting you,” Pearl said firmly, combing her fingers through Jasper’s thick fringe. “You’re _ours_.”

 

Jasper still wasn’t entirely used to that, but she couldn’t argue against the swell of warmth it inspired in her. Pearl looked at her with the same open longing she had seen during her dance with Garnet, and Jasper felt a little foolish for being jealous. Doubly so when Garnet lay down beside her and threw a leg over hers, settling a hand at the edge of her jaw. Jasper turned to face her and was startled to see the same warmth in her triad of eyes; Garnet clearly agreed with Pearl. And when Pearl shifted to curl against Jasper’s side, face and Gem pressed merrily against the much bigger Gem’s chest, it was hard to feel like she didn’t belong after all.


End file.
